From the talking Taco Bell chihuahua in ‘90s commercials to ABC’s winning 2017 talking dog comedy series “Downward Dog,” Michael Killen of Pittsburgh’s Animal Studios has used CGI to create talking animals for TV for decades.
In December he decided to try something new and potentially heretical to people in his line of work: Killen began producing an entirely AI-generated short-form series, “The Animal Critic,” starring a photoreal AI pug, that’s available at https://www.youtube.com/@TheAnimalCritic.
Killen acknowledged the controversy attendant with AI, writing on LinkedIn, “Should people push back on me for making an AI-animated series when, in many ways, it’s a viable path forward in my business? Or should we shame those who don’t have the decades of production experience we had before these tools arrived?
“Personally, nothing replaces a live animal in front of a camera (that includes humans — ha) but of course we cannot avoid recognizing that a bomb has already gone off and were just waiting for the shockwave.”
Killen said AI is already widely used in post-production work, especially with visual effects. But Killen wanted to “get my hands dirty” and see what would happen if he used AI to build a story and character.
“From first week of December till now, I’ve done 17 episodes, 100% by myself, which is insane,” Killen said last week before sending some Super Bowl-themed shorts starring a talking cat and NFL team mascots. “If I wanted to embrace a bunch of short subject pieces the way I did the ‘Downward Dog’ web series that led to the TV series, that would have been months and months [of work] and lots of other people [involved]. It’s actually mind-boggling how much I can do [alone]. From a creative standpoint, I felt quite powerful.”
Killen said he tries to “push the storytelling” with each episode to see at what point the AI fails.
“I have a British-accented cat [in ‘The Animal Critic’] and the software, the AI, likes to gravitate away from the British accent,” Killen said. “I have to do trigger words and trigger sentences to get the language model to gravitate back to the character. These are little bumps that will probably go away in the future, but right now, to keep it on the rails, there [are] some tricks to make it feel like it’s a consistent character.”
Killen said he uses ChatGPT mixed with PhotoShop to create images for the series which employs AI-created voices for the talking animals as well as AI music and special effects.
“Can I create a character that people find interesting or fun or want to watch, maybe not to the depth of what we did in ‘Downward Dog’ with a real dog, not yet, but I didn’t want to just spurt out incredible imagery that blows your mind,” Killen said. “Everybody’s doing that right now.”
What will AI mean for the future of the entertainment industry?
“I know for a fact that the large farms of people that it took to do visual effects is going to shrink,” Killen said. “I’m sure were over capacity right now, knowing that people can do stuff quicker, faster, cheaper.”
He compared it to the beginning of YouTube that coincided with the advent of smart phones with cameras which “democratized being a filmmaker.
“[AI] is definitely going to democratize the ability to do unbelievable levels of production from home, from your phone, whatever,” Killen said. “The ones that will emerge as people that can monetize it are the ones that are doing the interesting or doing the remarkable or the unique, kind of like we deal with in filmmaking and in television.”
And, yes, Killen said, he’s already talking with at least one other writer about the prospect of creating long-form TV series using AI.
“I don’t know if we’re quite there yet, but we’re bantering around ideas,” Killen said. “I think there’s gonna be a few monumental milestones in the relatively near future.”
Puppy Bowl XXII
For this year’s “Puppy Bowl XXII” (2 p.m. Feb. 8, Animal Planet, Discovery, TBS, TruTV, HBO Max, discovery ), four dogs from Western Pennsylvania shelters were chosen, including Kol and Niklaus (brothers) from Animal Friends and Meeko and Carrie Pawshaw from Paws Across Pittsburgh.
Jonathan Smith of Shadyside adopted Meeko, now known as Jack Arthur Wripley Smith (JAWS), in October, not long after Paws Across Pittsburgh representatives took the Jack Russell-Corgi mix to Glens Falls, N.Y., where “Puppy Bowl” films each fall.
“He is an ingenue rock star,” Smith said. “I think what they did at Puppy Bowl was put him in a tutu at the sidelines… which, honestly, I think he was pretty frustrated with because he should have been a more massive participant.”
Jacki Hoover’s adopted dog, Betty Goblin, got renamed Carrie Pawshaw by the “Puppy Bowl” producers.
“I think first it was supposed to be Sarah Jessica Barker and we were told there were copyright issues so they couldn’t do that,” said Hoover, who brought the American Eskimo dog/Norwegian elkhound home in August but had to sign papers saying she’d make the dog available for “Puppy Bowl” filming.
“I’ve been told she gets a touchdown, she has a penalty called, which certainly doesn’t surprise me, and she has a special moment with the ref,” said Hoover, who lives in Mt. Lebanon. “Betty is certainly assertive in getting what she wants. I’d say she’s more smart and savage where Carrie [Bradshaw] is more smart and savvy.”
“Puppy Bowl” dogs taken in and rehomed by Animal Friends were adopted by residents of Hershey, Dauphin County, and Midland, Beaver County.
Moore retires
This week former WQED-TV broadcaster Chris Moore announced plans to retire from his KDKA-AM radio show.
Moore, known to TV viewers for his WQED documentaries and as the host of WQED’s long-running “Black Horizons” public affairs show, told KDKA listeners his final broadcast will air Feb. 15.
Channel surfing
“The Visioneers with Zay Harding” (5:30 a.m. Sunday, KDKA-TV) visits Pittsburgh’s Gecko Robotics in the show’s first segment about using robots to sustainably rehab failing infrastructure. … To avoid competition from “Super Bowl LX,” HBO’s “Industry” and “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” will premiere early on HBO Max at 12:01 a.m. Feb. 6.